Command & Conquer Remaster in works

[Dark Drakan]

Originally posted this in the RTS Fans thread but now its official and news has been verified I thought it deserved its own thread.

EA are actually going to remaster some classic Command & Conquer Games for the franchises 25th Anniversary. Ive been a fan of this franchise for 23 years and some of my best gaming moments and memories were with this franchise from an early age and seeing Westwood Studios close down and the franchise die was also one of my worst gaming memories.

However Jim Vessella from EA has been posting about a remaster on the OpenRA Forums and on the Command and Conquer Reddit page and they want to hear fans thoughts on the idea. I urge all fans of the franchise to stop by and give thoughts and feedback and lets help bring Command & Conquer back to the forefront of RTS genre.

Statement from Jim Vessella​

 

[Dark Drakan]

Finally got to a PC to post this amazing news in full....

Original Command & Conquer Developers Remastering the Classic 90s Games

Jim Vessella, EA Producer

Fellow Command & Conquer fans,

A month ago, we let the Command & Conquer™ community know we were bringing the franchise back to the PC, starting with a remaster initiative. The reaction from fans has been amazing, with many of you sharing your favorite C&C moments from the past 23 years. We have been reading these comments and listening intently. And now, we are ready to reveal our first PC offering and how your suggestions are already influencing our approach.

Today, I’m thrilled to tell you we are going back to the beginning. We have decided to remaster Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn. And while this is incredibly exciting on its own, we’re also aware of how passionate the community is about the Red Alert universe. So, we will also remaster the original Command & Conquer: Red Alert™. But what about the classic expansion packs you may ask - Covert Ops, Counterstrike, and Aftermath? Well, C&C and Red Alert wouldn’t be the same without them, so all three expansion packs will be bundled with the base games into one remastered collection - without microtransactions.

Now, in addition to the excitement and support of this remaster initiative over the past month, there has also been a healthy skepticism that we can pull this off. How are we possibly going to remaster these titles while maintaining the authenticity of the original experiences? Bottom line, there is no better way to achieve this than to partner with some of the talented developers who brought these original games to life.

So, after years of the fans asking for their involvement, I am humbled to announce that EA is going to partner with Petroglyph Games to develop the C&C remastered collection.

Petroglyph Games includes many of the original developers from Westwood Studios, and some of the most influential members of the original Command & Conquer development team from 1995. Joe Bostic is known as the co-creator of C&C, having also served as the Lead Programmer on Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert. Steve Tall joined Joe as a Lead Programmer on Red Alert, and Ted Morris was the original community manager on the C&C franchise. And Mike Legg contributed to all forms of audio systems at Westwood, having been an employee since 1986! All four members helped start Petroglyph Games in 2003 after the closure of Westwood and are joined by a veteran group of RTS developers from the past 15+ years.

On a personal note, I can tell you the past few weeks have been surreal. During my first visit to Petroglyph, I was able to brainstorm “C&C feel” with Joe, reminisce about the jukebox with Mike, and gab with Steve about whether we should fix the Tib Dawn Harvester AI. Getting to chat C&C with the original developers has been one of the highlights of my gamer journey, and I can’t wait for all the incredible conversations to come.

In addition to the fantastic team at Petroglyph, we will also be partnering with Lemon Sky Studios to help bring these original games to 4k glory. Lemon Sky is one of the premier art studios around the world, with a unique specialty in remastering classic RTS titles. After meeting their team and hearing their passion for C&C, we are incredibly lucky to have them team up with Petroglyph to develop the highest quality C&C possible.

The exciting part is that we haven’t started development yet. The community is literally getting in on the ground floor of this project and have every opportunity to help influence how we build this remastered experience. Please continue to engage on Reddit and community channels and help us create the best possible remasters of C&C and Red Alert!

To kick things off, be sure to read the message below from Joe Bostic, and then watch the video at the bottom for one more surprise…

Welcome Back, Commander!

Jim Vessella
Jimtern

Joe Bostic (former Westwood Studios/Now Petroglyph) & worked on Dune II and C&C

Command & Conquer community,

It was over 25 years ago when Brett Sperry and I (at Westwood Studios) worked to create a game that mixed together elements of Populous, Civilization, Herzog Zwei, and Military Madness games. Brett Sperry was visionary and I was lead programmer and designer. The result was Dune II. The first game of a new genre -- Real-Time Strategy. The subsequent game, Command & Conquer (C&C), is where the RTS genre really took off. It combined video recorded actors, rendered 3D video sequences, alternate story endings, an enigmatic villain (Kane), free multiplayer for your friend (only 1 CD was required to play and the game came with 2 CDs), context-sensitive mouse control, and two unique factions that didn’t play by the same rules.

C&C didn’t turn out as we originally envisioned. I had initially designed the game to be set in a fantasy world with three factions -- humans, wizards, magical beasts. Some months into development, Brett Sperry decided to redirect the game toward modern military for two main reasons. The gulf war was in the news so this was more relatable to gamers at the time, and also because we believed fantasy was too niche. I saw this new direction for C&C as being closer to turning my childhood experiences of playing with plastic soldiers in a sandbox into “reality” so to speak. Thus Command & Conquer Tiberian Dawn was born.

The positive reaction to the game was intense. C&C was the right kind of game that arrived at the right time.

We should have seen the clues that C&C would be a success. The QA department would have difficulty testing for bugs since they could not resist losing focus to play for fun and try to win against each other instead of the more “boring” bug-testing they were actually assigned. The rest of the studio would play the game in the late afternoon and into the early evening. I would take careful notes and then make changes overnight to start the process over again the next day.

As soon as C&C was released, we immediately started working on an expansion pack that would pivot to alternate history with a post WW II feel. We kept adding more units, backstory twists (w/ Kane), more elaborate interstitial video sequences (still campy though), and new gameplay features. It became so massive an expansion that we just had to turn it into a stand-alone game in its own right -- C&C: Red Alert. Players seemed to love this game just as much as the original C&C!

Over the years, I’ve received C&C related gifts, fan mail, and anecdotes, and two fans even got matching GDI and Nod tattoos! The most common request is to bring C&C back to its roots like the original Command & Conquer and Red Alert. My answer was always the same: “Yes that would be great! Electronic Arts (EA) is the gatekeeper for C&C though. If they are on board, so am I!”

So here we are 20+ years later and EA has reached out to us regarding C&C. They had decided it was about time to revisit the original C&C games to give the fans what they had been asking for. Petroglyph has many former Westwood employees and is a perfect fit for bringing the original Command & Conquer games back to life. I’m excited to revisit the original Command & Conquer and Red Alert for our legacy fans, along with introducing the games to a new audience! Our battle-plan mission is to “remaster” rather than “remake” the original C&C games. That definition is a little fuzzy around the edges and that is where you come in.

I’m looking forward to re-engaging with the fans of the series as we bring the Command & Conquer franchise back to its roots of “easy to play, difficult to master”. We’re eager to provide an experience that takes advantage of enhanced connectivity, graphics features, and other technology improvements that weren’t around back in 1995. As we begin to craft the plan that will kick off the development phase of the project I’m eager to hear what else fans are looking for. If you could turn back the clock, what would you have wanted in the original C&C games? How true to a remaster should we adhere do? What modern improvements can be added without deviating from the core game? Balance changes? We will be starting development soon, so now is the time to let your voice be heard.

Joe Bostic

FULL LINK TO TOPIC ON REDDIT​

 

[Dark Drakan]

Numerous Command and Conquer games join Xbox backward compatibility​

Command and Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars, Command and Conquer 3 Kane’s Wrath, Command and Conquer Red Alert 3, and Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 Commander’s Challenge are all now available on Xbox One Backward Compatibility​

 

[Dark Drakan]

C&C Remaster & Source Code Update From Reddit

Fellow Command & Conquer fans,
We hope you had a good holiday season and that your New Year is off to a positive start. On our side, pre-production is continuing in earnest and we completed our first Milestone about two weeks ago. This Milestone included many of our documentation plans for how we want to build the game, and effectively laid the foundation for the rest of our pre-production cycle. Our next step is to begin translating those plans into a first playable prototype, which will hopefully help validate many of those initial concepts.

One of those key items is how we’re going to approach the game from a technical standpoint. We know one of your core questions has been around the game engine, and we’re ready to reveal some of those details below. Now, it’s worth noting that as with all software this early – plans can change – so please understand this is a snapshot of our thinking in January 2019, and does not necessarily guarantee how the game will eventually ship.

To kick things off, one of the most important questions from the community has been the following:​

Do we have access to the original source code?​

We’re excited to say the short answer is “Yes.” Over the past few months we have been able to acquire the majority of the source code for both the original C&C and original Red Alert. I say majority, because what we have is not a complete archive, and it’s going to continue taking some work to validate the full re-usability of the code. Thankfully, there is no better team than the individuals at Petroglyph to go on this R&D journey.

So what does all this mean?

Well, it means we’re aiming to re-use parts of the source code to try and keep the gameplay feel as close as possible to the original games. Again, our goal is to Remaster the original gameplay, not remake it. That being said, there are many areas where the original source code just cannot deliver the quality or functionality we’re looking for in many of the supporting elements. That’s where the second piece of the puzzle comes in.

In addition to Petroglyph’s unique familiarity with the original source code, they have also spent the past 15 years optimizing their own proprietary RTS engine called GlyphX. This engine has been used to power Petroglyph’s RTS titles, and comes with many of the recent standards the community would expect from a modern RTS engine. So with that in mind, our goal is to utilize both GlyphX and the original source code to gain the combined benefits towards the Remaster.

To provide a quick example (Not guaranteed but purely for illustration purposes), imagine using the original source code to determine the charge-up behavior of the Tesla Coil, but utilizing the GlyphX Audio system to ensure the Sound FX are fully enhanced for when that Tesla Coil fires.

As you can predict, there are more details which we’ll learn as we begin to execute upon this plan. But we hope this provides some clarity in the meantime as to how we’re approaching the Remaster from a technical perspective. We’re eager to share more as we begin to prototype the software, and looking forward to hearing your comments in the thread below.

Cheers,
Jim Vessella
Jimtern​

 

[Dark Drakan]

Command & Conquer Remastered update shows off the new UI

The C&C Remasters have officially entered production and Jim Vessella has released a shot of the new updated UI.

READ FULL STATEMENT ON REDDIT HERE​

 

[Dark Drakan]

Command & Conquer Remastered hits alpha, celebrates with Tesla Tank

OFFICIAL STATEMENT

Fellow Command & Conquer fans,

Positive momentum continues and earlier this month we completed our first production milestone. This milestone included several key improvements to Tiberian Dawn, most notably delivering our first Campaign mission to full Alpha quality. This means all the mission visuals are now showcasing the 4k assets from Lemon Sky, and the mission can be completed with all the core gameplay mechanics. I’ll admit when playing this full mission experience, the game started to transport me back to when I first played C&C, and I hope it does the same for all of you when the game is released.

However, one of the more exciting accomplishments of this milestone actually had nothing to do with Tiberian Dawn. That’s because we were able to get Red Alert playable for the first time. We are now able to load Red Alert missions, and the game is already being populated with several of the remastered visual assets. That’s because even though Red Alert just became playable in the software, Lemon Sky has actually been creating assets for Red Alert over the past several months. So to celebrate this first step for Red Alert, we thought it would be fun to share a preview for one of the most iconic Red Alert units - the Tesla Tank.

In the same fashion as our approach of the structures, our primary goal for units has been to maintain the authenticity of the original in-game asset. In an effort to take advantage of the 4k resolution, many of our earlier unit concepts included extra widgets and details, but we often found this compromised the unit’s readability at camera game height. So we continued to iterate, and over the months we’ve begun to hone in on these elements, and feel like the Tesla Tank here strikes a good balance between readability and those added details. Of note, we only interpreted one Tesla ring from the legacy in-game asset, but there’s already been a healthy debate with the Community Council whether the Tesla ball should have two rings to match the cinematic reference. Perhaps we can get feedback here from the greater community to help decide this unit’s final look : )

Thanks for your ongoing support and participation, and looking forward to sharing more details as both games now become more playable.

Cheers,
Jim Vessella​

 

[Dark Drakan]

Besides Cyberpunk 2077 I think this is the title that im looking forward to the most and its a remaster of a 25 year old series. I have so many memories tied to the Command & Conquer franchise & was devastated when EA shut down Westwood Studios. It was one of the main franchises that properly ignited my passion for gaming and I spent thousands of hours playing the games throughout the years.

The release date for the game is fast approaching (5th June) and it will be available on both Origin and Steam. EA have also launched the Official Page on the website for the game with a countdown and list of features.

 

[Dark Drakan]

Command & Conquer Remastered Collection's source code released in mod support update

Yesterday Electronic Arts announced it would be releasing the source code for both Red Alert and Tiberian Dawn. This is a move to ensure that older mods don’t end up scrapped or incompatible with C&C Remastered Collection’s new mod support initiative. The available code and editors provided with C&C Remastered should make for some fun custom maps, units, and other more elaborate creations.

Statement by EA Producer Jim Vassella

"Today we are proud to announce that alongside the launch of the Remastered Collection, Electronic Arts will be releasing the TiberianDawn.dll and RedAlert.dll and their corresponding source code under the GPL version 3.0 license.

It’s worth noting this initiative is the direct result of a collaboration between some of the community council members and our teams at EA. After discussing with the council members, we made the decision to go with the GPL license to ensure compatibility with projects like CnCNet and Open RA.

That is to say that the release of the source code under the GPL license should help to ensure that older mods don’t end up scrapped and incompatible with C&C Remastered Collection’s new mod support initiative, even while the available code and editors provided with C&C Remastered should make for some fun custom maps, units, and other more elaborate creations." ​

 

[Dark Drakan]

Command & Conquer Remastered already has an absurd number of players

Command & Conquer Remastered Collection | Kane Gets Personal

If EA had any doubt that the RTS Genre was in fact not dead and buried and they needed any further proof that they have been sitting on the crown jewel franchise of the genre all this time then this is it.

'Within two hours after launch, the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection was at the top of Steam’s charts, with more than 42,000 players in-game at the same time. '

WELCOME BACK COMMANDER

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[Dark Drakan]

Command & Conquer Remaster currently 85% off until 23rd Jan

Command & Conquer is one of my favourite game series of all time and the Remastered Collection is currently at the cheapest price it has ever been on steam and 85% off (£2.69).
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Command & Conquer and Red Alert defined the RTS genre 25 years ago and are now both fully remastered in 4K by the former Westwood Studios team members at Petroglyph Games. Includes all 3 expansion packs, rebuilt multiplayer, a modernized UI, Map Editor, bonus gallery of unreleased FMV footage, and over 7 hours of legendary remastered music by Frank Klepacki. Welcome back, Commander.

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